The Big One

This is it, the big one, from here its wandering in the desert, hoping to find the water that is Osiris’s Skull.

Hopefully I will see you again, I know the others are preparing themselves for the time ahead as well, writing letters to the ones that mean the most to them, or just wandering around and absorbing life around us, knowing these could be our last hours before we go on a suicide mission. I blame those tards of the Dark, I’m pretty sure their incompetence caused this to happen, and are the ones responsible for handing Lord Osiris’s Skull to this Modeus thing and need a good hanging for doing so. They say the war is over, but here we are cleaning up their wartime messes, not to mention they are war criminals with what they have done since this started. If I come back I am going to personally make sure they pay for all the evil things they did if the church doesn’t. Torturing innocent people just to try to get your enemy to stop what they are doing isn’t honourable or even condoned in war. If the church of light brushes the church of darks atrocities under the mat it will tarnish the Lord of Justice’s return, making a mockery of what he stands for.

However if we don’t come back, try to find the poorest person you can and give them anything of my stuff you don’t want. Maybe they will follow in my footsteps and go to Hades and practice the nutcracker on our enemies there.

Arriving at Mishala was a great weight off my chest, even though ReSet rarely got the better of CrIsis, we were still untested against them and we were taking them on their homeground, thanks to the Troll – Grignak we did just that, I have shook the hand of a god, it might not have been attached to him at the time but that’s not my fault. Mishala was warm, moist, but a nice cool wind was blowing in off the coast, bringing that tang of salt with it. Sulyott the All-Knowing will be helping us out, which I feel is very fortunate for us, as we have had little preparation time for the trip to Hades, as we weren’t even sure if we would survive Cynopolis.

As we headed to the temple to place the penultimate piece Grignak received a missive from U’Selekma saying that the great Jidian Kulder would be Joining us. The hero of Northmoor is seriously competent and we need every bit of help that we can get.

We bathed in the Warm waters of the temple and then we were slowly anointed with Holy Oils by priestesses of unearthly beauty with hands softer than the finest goose down, they then dressed us in simple white robes for our exodus across the Silent Desert, contemplating the meaning of life until we reached THE pyramid, slowly and reverently we ascended to the top to find a Ramen house party, we peeled our sweat dripping clothes of and partied like there was no tomorrow, because for us there might not be. Never do the limbo with Sulyott, the man can contort his body in amazing ways.

The Ramen, whose name I didn’t get, then asked us if we had any questions, but we didn’t really, so we then decided that it would be best to place the last piece into the flame together, U’Selekma voted himself out and Jidian tried to do the same, but was shouted down, he deserved this as much as we did for all the help he has given us over the years. To me placing the hand was the end of the war with the church of the dark, except for kicking them in the nuts for being dumb, they still had that coming. U’Selekma talked to Grignak about how there was dark in light and light in dark and everyone should live together happily, in a perfect world maybe, but the lovey dovey stuff will wear off when people start jockeying for power again and I’m pretty sure with the way that human nature is that things will eventually go back to the way they were, evil being evil and good being good, but until then the priest peace will reign.

We all put our best hand forward and together we placed the Hand of O into the flames and immediately the most doped out lightning I have ever experienced struck the altar and we felt calm and relaxed and almost readied for the fight ahead.

Then the Lord Thoth appeared out of thin air, and studied us all, lightning struck Sulyott in the head “BOOM HEADSHOT” but surprisingly his head did not explode, then talks to the wee free gnome and blesses him.
Lord Thoth also asked if we needed anything but his sheer presence seemed to have everybody, well not cowed but certainly in awe of him and we were strangely silent.
He wished us the best and then left, we quietly descended the temple and back across the desert and dressed our selves again in the coils of our duty and honour.
Sulyott immediately then took us to his tower.

Sulyott is a great man with a great mind, but I think he forgets that some(all hehe) of us don’t have his intelligence or knowledge, and as he started telling us about his trip there pointed out a few more things that we would need, and supplied them but seemed to be hoping that we would come up with some things our self rather than just telling us. A years worth of food and some acceptable mounts would have been handy information too. Undoubtedly there will be many other things but what he gave us has helped us tremendously. Rings that give us a demonic visage (im a devil dog, and I need a spiky collar) for 6 hours, protective footwear and heat protection torcs, as apparently fire protection doesn’t do that. He also gave us money there, demons using money, for some reason that strikes me as wrong that such evil creatures actually use such mundane things. Sulyott also gave us a rundown on different types of demon, but as the book didn’t have pictures I wasn’t really interested in it. We then have our possibly last night on Palladium, so I did what any sane being would do, and went out and got brain dead drunk.

The next morning was a hazy blur of nausea, light and vomit. Sulyott mentions some more things that my brain isn’t even close enough to functioning to absorb/understand except for the last bit, if we touch our rings together we become Super Ultra Crisis or something, and when we SUC we will be a force to contend with.

Sulyott said to put on the rings of demonic visage, and then teleported us to Hades without any further ado, no surprise that we touched our rings together, but the only thing that happened was a danned portal which opened and moaned at us. My intuition, as badly hung over as it was new I wasn’t going to like this bit, and going through the portal was every bit as bad as I thought I was going to be, my head felt like it was 6 sizes to big, my stomach was as stable as the sea in a cyclone, and the light burned right through to the back of my head. Strangely enough I seemed to be the only one so afflicted, or the others were more used to the process than I, and I truly suspect the latter is the case. After we got our bearings on the friggin demon city that we were in, remember when I said Sulyott had need to know info, this was one of them, we appeared in the middle of a gigantic demon city, and it was crawling with demons and their sheep. Unfortunately the sheep were humans, elves, dwarves and other species I didn’t easily recognise, and the smell, if you think one demon stinks pack a million of them together and see what you get, I just shudder at the thought of sewers, I don’t think the worlds ending would want to touch the sewers either.
Apparently we were being just a little too tourist like, and before I had regathered my wits that I had just projectile vomited all over the ground with all my breakfast, a large and ugly demon accosted us with bureaucratic autharitah that felt as slimy as he did, asking what we were doing and on who’s authority were we doing it, This thing had to be some sort of policing or militia demon, with the way he came over and stuck his business in ours. Immediately the group answered him and I thought that Grignak was going to take on his toughest John, er Job yet. It came out that we had a map, so Ursus came up with the idea that we were doing a convoluted plot to convince a heap of prisoners they could escape with the map, and then capture mid escape in to break their will and hope and generally have fun. I thought it was all over but after trying to poke holes in the plan, it, the police demon then decided to steal the idea whilst putting us down. If we weren’t in Hades it would have been almost funny, but it decided to leave us alone. The next 6 hrs weren’t anywhere near as funny, we had to trudge through the city of demons hoping that while we were doing so the demonic visages that we had would keep us safe, for one demon penetrating its magic would spell the end of us. Demon after demon passed us by, intent on its on problems, however there were Demons torturing, degrading, debasing and generally making life miserable for other creatures and other demons. As the rings neared the time of wearing off we managed to find a deserted building for us to hole up for the night, and we spent a nervous 16 hrs waiting for the rings to recharge or demons to burst in amongst us and denounce us for being servants of the light. This mind bending pattern repeated itself for days until we managed to break free of the dark city, and the soul twisting city of the damned was being left behind us. The outskirts weren’t no better, different creatures were tortured or whipped beyond endurance, with slave trains and worse bring fresh fodder for the grinder, despair was a very part of the dust, the wind a mournful wail and carried smells that burned the senses and brought only dark thoughts.

Only being able to be seen for 6 hrs a day was a burden, we are half burying the tents to stay hidden so the creatures of chaos cannot find us, with Willy bravely scouting ahead to find the safest route. We came across a strange trees with weird blue fruit. Willy saw a Gallu casually feeding on a human carcass, and watched while another person ripped a blue fruit off a tree, and covered himself with the liquid from it to try to gain surcease from the soul destroying heat and torture, while he was still dripping from the juice of the fruit a demon caught him, picked him up and took a big bite out of him, and then threw the bleeding and dying person aside ‘Humans can only eat when commanded’ ground out from the demon as he sat back down, picking human gristle out from between his fangs. Silent quietly uses his mental powers to pull some fruit from the tree, and bring some back to himself for later investigation, as its starting to seem that we could be here for months, maybe even years, the distances are as deceiving as the creatures that live here. As we traveled we came across another type of tree with goldish fruit, and it looks as if it might be edible version of the blue fruit tree, but we are nowhere near starvation yet to eat food grown in desperation and fertilised with despair. Slowly the time in the tent starts blurring together, with us being very quiet and uncomfortable, and our personal smells start getting more noticeable by our companions our tempers started to warm up. At least the temperature is comfortable in the environmental tent, for as as we stay hidden there a whole horde of things pass us by and as they miss us I don’t even want to know what they are. Distance is a camouflaging blanket that helped us on

When we got up today something has changed, Silent had that look of determination on his face that said he had made a decision and he pulls out the crystal staff from his backpack. He says he knows the warnings about us not flying, but we will die before getting to out destination from lack of food, so he gets us flying as the eagle, this works fairly well but we have to stay low and fast, and the first sign of trouble is a when a whole cloud of demon birds see us and head towards us with murderous intent, but when we land to deal with them Silent slowly holds one hand out and a wall stops em all dead, they smash into it, breaking whatever unholy magic that animates their cursed bodies. Willy starts talking about using their feathers in some sort of flying experiment, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea but it becomes a moot point when we have to push on again. This sort of repeats the next day, except as we are going along we come to a deepish canyon The winds start getting gusting nasty and hot, and then Willy pushed out his will to alter atmospheric conditions to something we are more used to, but his working attracts the attention of the Canyon dwellers. These things are some sort of mixed byproduct of crossing a locust with a scorpion, and then enlarging it. The sulphurous smell starts getting stronger as the Locusts gather together in their might to fight us, but then Grignak does something unexpected and opens up a hellmouth … in Hades, the effects are immediate, the visual sights are truly strange, but that’s when I looked up at ReSet and Willy and that’s when I heard the strange, somehow harsh words coming from Willy, he was starting to floating off his mount, looking up at the sky with reflected lightning that didn’t exist yet burning white lines across my eyes, and the weather started to rage. Twisted fingers of the skies rage burnt actinic channels across the ground, with chest constricting crashes of thunder smashing through the air straight after.

“…I blame those tards of the Dark, I’m pretty sure their incompetence caused this to happen, and are the ones responsible for handing Lord Osiris’s Skull to this Modeus thing and need a good hanging for doing so. …”